Trade Secrets, Communism, HDI: The Keralam Story

This is the first of a three-part series by K Bharathram, political analyst and founder of Poll Pulse on Substack, which examines Kerala’s political landscape ahead of the Assembly elections, analysing the LDF’s bid for a third term, the UDF’s anti-incumbency push, and the NDA’s attempt to emerge as a third front.
Part 1: Kerala’s social diversity, roots of communism, and human development model.
Part 2: Electoral history, alliances, and the trend of close, flip-flop contests.
Part 3: Region-wise dynamics and why central Kerala could decide the outcome.

This series will try to answer the following questions:
Can the UDF replicate its local body election performance in the assembly elections?
Can the LDF government retain power?
Can the BJP (re) open its account?
Will this election be close?
Let’s get some background necessary to answer these questions.

Divide does not conquer AKA Religious diversity
Keralam is perhaps the only Indian state where significant populations of Hindus, Muslims and Christians have co-existed peacefully for centuries. How did this diversity come about?

Trade.

Keralam has been part of the spice trade for centuries, and even Sumerian texts dating back to 3000 BCE reference it. Keralam also had proven maritime trade links with other regions like Assyria, Arabia, Egypt and Babylon, and later with Greece, Rome and China.

Judaism, Islam and Christianity all arrived on Indian shores through the maritime route, and their earliest outposts in India, indeed the whole of East Asia, are in Keralam. Local patronage and trading wealth contributed to Islam taking roots in the coastal regions. The Age of Discovery in Europe brought Vasco da Gama to Keralam’s shores, ushering in sustained European influence and contributing to the growth of a significant Christian population especially in its central part.

The initial converts to these new religions were mostly in coastal areas but over time their influence spread into the hinterland. The relative share of the three religions in independent India is shown in picture below.

The rising share of the Muslims (who supplanted Christians as the largest religious minority in the 1970s) is a fault line in Kerala politics especially among Christians who are apprehensive about their reduced influence. However, none of the religious groups are monoliths, as we see next.

Keralam’s Muslims are not homogenous – the Mappillas in the north were earlier mostly landless labourers, while in the south, the Rowther muslims are believed to have descended from warriors.

Meanwhile, Keralam’s Christians also belong to various denominations with the Syro Malabar Church and the Latin Catholic Church having the largest following (~40% and 14% of the Christian population).

Similarly, there is significant diversity within the Hindus also.

Scheduled Castes account for 9.1% of the state population, with Pulayan/Cheruman accounting for nearly half the share within this group, while less common are the Kuravars, Kanakkan, Mannan and Paraiyar castes.

Scheduled Tribes account for 1.5% of the state population and are mostly found in Wayanad (~20% of district population) and Idukki (5% of the district population). Paniyan is the most numerous tribe (20% of total ST population) while others like Kurichchan, Kuruman , Malai Aryan and Mavilan are less common.

Ezhavas/Thiyyas are the most predominant caste amongst Hindus, accounting for nearly a quarter of the state population, with Nairs coming next, accounting for more than a sixth of the state population. The remaining Hindu castes are numerically insignificant.

From an electoral perspective, Keralam’s religious diversity precludes religious polarization as a winning strategy since a party needs the support of Hindus and at least one religious minority to succeed.

Survival of the most nimble – Communism in Kerala
The Communist Party of India (CPI) was founded in 1925. When the British banned the CPI in 1934, to survive, the communists joined the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) across India. However, the Congress began to suspect that the CPI would take over the CSP and called for their expulsion from the party. But the Congress in Kerala did not do so, thus providing a continued political platform for Kerala communists. Now, when the ban on the CPI was removed in 1942, the communists within the Kerala congress regrouped into their own political unit. And when the call for the Quit India movement was announced by the Congress, they did not support it. The call resulted in the most members of the Kerala Congress being imprisoned but allowed the Kerala CPI members to spread their influence.

The 1943-45 famine in Keralam caused large scale fatalities and suffering, especially in Travancore. The CPI gained support during and in the aftermath of this famine. The heavy-handed repression of protests by the state also solidified support for the CPI. Lastly, CPI rallied behind Aikiya Keralam- a movement to unify all Malayali speakers in Malabar, Cochin and Travancore into one state. These measures helped the CPI to form the first democratically elected communist government in the world in 1957. This first government headed by EMS Namboodiripad enacted measures like the Education Bill (that sought to regulate all educational institutions, including those run by minorities) and the Agrarian Relations Bill (that sought to protect rights of tenant farmers) which were popular but ran afoul of diverse interest groups like IUML, Syro Malabar Church and Upper Caste Hindus. These groups launched a Vimochana Samaram (Liberation Struggle) that culminated in the dismissal of the state government by the Centre in 1959- the first instance of President’s rule in India. But these actions helped the CPI cement its support among working classes and ensured its continued relevance.

Human Development Indicators
Keralam leads Indian states by a wide margin in most Human Development Indicators (see picture below).

In November 2025, it declared that it had eliminated extreme poverty- the first Indian state to do so. Understanding how this has been achieved provides some useful insights into the state’s politics.

The Travancore Kingdom (1729-1949) implemented multi-pronged reforms such as public healthcare, smallpox immunization (1813), ensured widespread availability of education (including through missionaries) and built robust public transport/ communications infrastructure. These created a solid platform for later advances in public health and education. Further, social reformers like Narayana Guru, Elias Chavara and Ayyankali pushed for social and religious emancipation of backward castes and Dalits, ensuring that public investments in education and healthcare benefited most of the population.

Later governments effectively leveraged these initiatives and continued to invest heavily in education and healthcare. For instance, one of the first actions of the first CPI government in 1957 was to reform education by exercising state control to bring about uniformity and promote access for all sections of society. Every Keralam state government – whether communist or otherwise – supported these investments, suggesting that they believed the electorate prioritized equitable development policies. Perhaps, since divide does not conquer in Keralam, development makes for a better poll strategy?

I will explore Keralam’s electoral history, and key features of its elections in the next article.